1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for interoperability testing of computer programs which have been localized for use in foreign countries, and more particularly, for the creation and use of a universal test script in a computer scripting language for efficiently testing software in various national languages.
2. Art Background
Computer programs play an important role in our every day lives. Each year significant investments are made by high technology software companies throughout the world to develop new computer programs. These computer programs are used by a broad spectrum of data processing devices which range from super computers and massively parallel processors, to home video game systems.
Historically, computer programs have been developed in the English language and distributed throughout the world. The distribution of such computer programs includes countries in which English is not a national language. The use of software applications in a country in which English is not the national language requires the "localization" of the software, such that it operates in the local language and utilizes the appropriate character set unique to the language of the particular country. A localized version of the software must not only operate using the local language, but it must also accommodate differences in currency symbols, numbers, and date formats.
Once a software application has been localized for use in a foreign country, the localized software must be tested for functionality and interoperability to verify that the localization process has been successful, and that the program operates without problem in the local language. The process for testing a localized computer program is referred to as "National Language Support" (NLS) testing. In the past, to test localized software a human script writer was required to prepare a test script in a computer scripting language. Currently, there are a variety of computer scripting languages available on the market, including QA Partner Script.RTM., SQL Script.RTM. and PERL Script.RTM.. In order to test software in different national languages, for example, Japanese, Chinese, Thai or Korean, a script writer is required to develop multiple scripts, one for each one of the languages to be tested. The creation of multiple scripts in the various languages usually requires separate human script writers who are fluent in the particular national language. In addition, separate scripts must be written in the local language for each different computer hardware platform on which the program will be run. Thus, the testing of a localized computer program is time consuming and expensive, since a test script written in Japanese cannot be used to test the same program localized in, for example Chinese, Korean or French. Moreover, a test script written in, for example Japanese, for a personal computer (PC) could not be used to test the same program written for a Unix.RTM. system.
As will be described, the present invention provides a method and apparatus utilizing a Universal NLS ("UNLS") paradigm to test software products in various languages directly from a single English language based UNLS script. The present invention permits a single UNLS test script to be utilized for multiple languages, character sets and computer platforms, and thereby provides an efficient and cost effective mechanism for testing localized software.